'I don't want him speaking for all Jews'
Coverage of Columbia's protests and Jewish life in New York
As protesters chanted, “Down, down with occupation,” two young Jewish men stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian tent encampment and passionately voiced clashing interpretations of the same reality.
Holding the white and blue Israeli flag, Isidore Karten, a 2022 Columbia graduate, said he was frustrated that activists he saw as siding with Hamas and furthering antisemitic hatred were taking over his alma mater’s public lawn. “Why are there people supporting terrorism here and no one’s doing anything about it?” he said, refusing to leave.
Jared Kannel, a master’s student, held a sign with the names of Palestinian children killed since Oct. 7 and said conscientious people everywhere should stand up against the murder of innocents by Israel. “I don’t want him speaking for all Jews the way that people have claimed to speak for all Jews while waving these ridiculous flags,” he replied, referring to Karten and his Israeli flag. “Acknowledge my Judaism and simply disagree with what I’m saying.”
It was a brief exchange captured by my Wall Street Journal colleagues Erin Ailworth, Alyssa Choiniere and Joseph Pisani at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Columbia University’s Manhattan campus. The quads in Morningside Heights have become the epicenter of the intensifying student protests over Israel’s invasion of Gaza after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, occupations that have led to unrest and arrests at universities from New York to Texas to California.
Many students across the country are navigating the turbulent final weeks of the school year on campuses riven by differing views on the Israel-Hamas war. Cramming now happens amid a swirl of emotion, anxiety and angst as protesters, counterprotesters, faculty and the rest of the student body grapple with events in the Middle East. This is also unfolding during the Passover holiday, which commemorates the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt.
New York City is home to an estimated 944,000 Jewish residents—more than any place outside of Israel—and has elected three Jewish mayors. Since Oct. 7, many Jewish people who once felt comfortable in the city said they now wrestle with feelings of insecurity, and in some cases play down their religious identity.
As I wrote in a Sunday article in The Wall Street Journal, some Jews have become more supportive of Israel and its efforts to retaliate against Hamas. For some politically progressive Jews in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, Israel’s sustained incursion into Gaza has elevated concerns about the current Israeli government and its treatment of the residents of Gaza and the West Bank.
There have been 103 complaints of hate crimes targeting Jews so far in 2024 and 10 against Muslims, according to the most recent citywide New York Police Department data. That is an increase from 68 and two, respectively, over the same period in 2023. In the precincts covering the Upper West Side, there were 25 reported bias incidents against Jews between Oct. 7, 2023, and the start of April, according to the NYPD.
Synagogues have sent their congregants emails about entry and exit procedures, one worshiper said, on top of security that was already heightened after the 2018 mass shooting attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. A major shul on the Upper West Side updated its security protocols after Oct. 7 to require staff to wear ID badges at all times, a spokesman said.
When the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty held food-distribution events in the days before Passover, it made arrangements with the NYPD for security. “We never had the need to do this before, and we never frankly felt unsafe,” said Met Council chief executive David Greenfield. “But there is palpable anxiety, and every major cultural organization is feeling it.”
There are also Jewish New Yorkers like Kannel who have joined demonstrations calling for cease-fires. On Tuesday last week, ralliers filled Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza for a protest organized in part by the group Jewish Voice for Peace.
Some politically progressive Jews said in conversations with other activists they find themselves holding a line between arguing for peace while also pushing back on antisemitic or pro-Hamas rhetoric.
“Many people in and out of the Jewish community are being told, ‘You have to pick a side,’ ” said Amy Spitalnick, chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an advocacy group. “The reality is the vast majority of American Jews, and certainly New Yorkers, can hold the complexity of this.”
THE QUESTION: Who was the first Jewish mayor of New York City?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: What do they got, a lot of sand? We got a hot crustacean band! These little clams here know how to jam here, Under the Sea! (Only three people answered correctly, including my 9-year-old daughter.)